US House Redistricting: Michigan

[Torie]

That Detroit area map looks like something the GOP would not be remotely happy with, at first glance. It looks just awful. Am I missing something?

[Torie]

Where is McCotter supposed to park his hat?  There must be a better way than this.  The idea is to get rid of a Dem, not a Pubbie. Why not have CD-13 stay in Wayne, and pick up Dem precincts from the green district, and have the green district go north of the Wayne County line, and pick up GOP precincts?  At ;east CD-13 should pick up the most Dem precincts in Macomb. It isn't with this map. And do the districts have to be a rectangular as possible?  The Flint district, should reach down and pick up the most Dem parts of Oakland County, not the most GOP parts.

[Torie]

Well in my defense, that post was kind of hard to read the way it was formatted.  Anyway, I am pleased that you don't think the law dictates this horrible map. If it does, well the law needs to be changed.   Is there some supra majority requirement to change it, because it is in the Michigan Constitution or something?  

[Torie]

In that map, the GOP gets 6 seats, with the gray district a toss-up.  The Dems have 7 safe seats.

How on earth, do you find 8 GOP seats? The red district is a pretty heavily lean Dem district. It has Eaton, without much in the way of heavy GOP counties to neutralize it, like Livingston.

[Torie]

We disagree about the red seat. Oh, my bad. I thought Eaton was Lansing. OK fair enough. This map ain't happening though. It really only has two safe GOP seats, the one with Livingston in it, and the one with Ottawa in it. The rest are somewhat to very marginal.

[Torie]

Lansing is cracked now. How much population do the two black seats and the Dingell seat need to pick up is part of the question. If they have to pick up a lot, that means a lot more Dems if the map is drawn right, can be shoved into them. That is the key.

[Torie]

The trick is whether it is possible to squeeze Levin and Peters together. That is the dance vis a vis the Wayne County CD's.

And here is I think the GOP solution, and will be the solution that the GOP will take. The trick is to have Dingell lose Monroe County (which when added to MI-7 (the gray district that you can barely see a sliver of at the bottom of the screen shot), nicely gives the additional population that district needs), and in exchange, plus having to add population, he picks up white precincts from the southern portion of the black districts, mostly from the one to the west - rather than the white precincts in McCotter's green district (not colored yet, except for a couple of precincts).  Picking up white Dems, not white Pubbies, is what we do for Mr. Dingell. He keeps what he has in Wastenaw (even though the utility is not large enough to show he still has Ann Arbor, but he does). Then the east black district takes from precincts from the west black district, and the west black district rounds up every precinct in Oakland County where there are significant numbers of blacks, plus picks up a few white precincts to equalize population, and effect the link up to Pontiac.

So now the most Dem areas of both the Levin and Peters districts are gone. Candice Miller in the Macomb County red district, has more of a headache, but it can't be helped. The turquoise district (east Oakland north and east of where the black district stops, is not finished. It can expand in northern Macomb, or elsewhere. So  northern Macomb, and the thumb, and the balance of what is left of Peters' MI-9 district in Oakland are open for one district to replace the Peters and Levin districts, and for the other districts to expand into, and the territory is pretty GOP friendly. The GOP districts like dominoes can all be shoved east into or towards that zone, I would think. This map is the only one that creates two black districts that are 60% black. The blacks in Oakland just have to be picked up to hew to a 60% black population target, and if the percentages get down much below 60%, the black representatives are not going to be happy anyway. It should be pretty bullet proof from any judicial standpoint.

The  GOP loser to some extent is Candice Miller, but she will be able to hold her somewhat more Dem district I would think against Levin. It is either that, or get rid of the Michigan law, so more erose and precise gerrymanders can be effected. In exchange though, the GOP has the potential to replace two Dems (Levin and Peters) with one Republican, which is not a bad day's work. It will be very hard for Peters to win in his totally redone district.  At worst, even if Levin wins, that means in effect that Peters is gone, and Miller is replaced by some other Pubbie in a more GOP Oakland district, that can expand into Northern Macomb and the thumb, which it will have to, because the eastern part of his district needs to go to other Republicans. Poor Oakland - the sliced and diced county, time after time.

[map deleted]

[Torie]

And here is the final "solution" for the Detroit metro area.  I suppose actually that the turquoise district should pick up a bit more of Saginaw, so the green district can pick up a few precincts in Oakland from the turquoise district, while losing its four precincts in Wastenaw, so that county split can be avoided. I will do that later, and replace this map.

[Torie]

Well this is about as nasty a gerrymander of Oakland County as I could manage, and it is probably illegal, but I leave that to Muon2 to tell me. My aim is to try to equalize the PVI's for the pink, turquoise, green and purple districts, with the purple having a bit more, since the Obama swing was more in the purple zone, as far as I can tell, but maybe not given what I have put in it. The goal is to get the PVI's four all four districts to about GOP +3, with the purple district a bit more. I am not sure I have done that (probably not for McCotter's Green district , but I packed as many GOP districts into it as possible in Oakland, while leaving what it has in Wayne County alone), but I did the best I can and it should hopefully get up to about an GOP plus 1-2% PVI anyway. If the turquoise CD  jut down to the Wayne County line is illegal, and the Green district has to fill much of it in, then the green CD's PVI of 0% will not change much, and might even drop a tad.

Leips' application does not have the partisan data for Michigan yet, but looking at the township and city returns, and the black percentages in Oakland, I am pretty sure I have corralled all, or almost all,  of the most GOP precincts for the Pubbies in Oakland, after dumping most if not all of the most Dem precincts in Oakland as possible into the black district. So,  it is just a matter of divvying the more GOP oriented districts in Oakland between the green, turquoise and purple districts. I wanted to chew up Saginaw and Bay City, because I don't think the northern CD's can afford to include either city, and thus they need to be neutralized from the south (and were by the turquoise district), since the Flint district instead of neutralizing Bay City and Saginaw as it did before, now neutralizes Lansing. The turquoise district also has a long thin jut down into south Oakland, which is about even territory for Bush 2004 (maybe a slight Bush 2004 lean of plus 1-2% or so, since I chopped up the townships in the jut area between what appears to be the more Dem and GOP pieces, so it has a somewhat Dem PVI - maybe a Dem PVI +2% or so.  I did that to try to get the GOP PVI for the Green district up as much as possible; the green district  is now  PVI 0%, and it needs as much beefing up as possible. So its expansion was into new more heavily GOP Oakland territory, with a GOP PVI of maybe plus 4% or so, although I am not sure. If the turquoise CD jut down south to the Wayne County border is illegal, then the green CD's PVI of 0% will not change much, and probably go down a fraction to maybe Dem +0.5% or so.

In any event, as long as McCotter, Miller, and Rodgers hang around, Levin and Peters face a near hopeless task of getting elected anywhere, at least absent a big Dem shift in this area, and some new Pubbie has in the purple district pretty ripe hanging fruit to pick up.

[Torie]

Thanks Muon2. But can you override all of those annoying little requirements via the VRA  in order to get the black districts up to 60% of the population? You have to slice townships and towns to do that (probably also in Wayne, if the same requirement obtains there), or you are going to fall down to 57% or something, and among VAP, lower still (and among voters, we may then be barely over 50%)? I checked the black percentage of each precinct I appended to the black district in Oakland, in order to maximize its black percentage. And there are no other blacks to be had to speak of in the Detroit metro area. I corralled them all.

By the way, for future reference, here is the text of the Michigan Law. The Pubbies revised it to do their last gerrymander, hewing to some Michigan Supreme Court precedents apparently, based on what I don't know. I suppose it could be tweaked if necessary. For example, my turquoise district is not very compact, but that is just the way it has to be.

[Torie]

OK Verily. It won't do too much "damage" to fix it. The purple district will get maybe 1%-2% more Dem in its PVI, and the Green district about 1%-2% less or so, I would guess. I was fighting hard for every PVI point. Michigan is an interesting state to do, because it has these Dem nodes in it, and so the game is to neutralize them, one by one (with two black districts of course a given): Muskegon, Kalamazoo, Lansing, Bay City and Saginaw, Flint, the Dem areas of Macomb and Oakland, Ann Arbor, and the white Dems of Wayne. One does that by packing multiple nodes into one Dem district, or neutralizing the nodes by appending them to otherwise GOP areas.

You get an "A" for this exercise if you hew to the rule of 4 - 4 Dem seats each for Pennsylvania, Ohio and Michigan.

[Torie]

You get an "A" for this exercise if you hew to the rule of 4 - 4 Dem seats each for Pennsylvania, Ohio and Michigan.

I would really be interested in seeing a PA map with only 4 Democrats. And what is meant by "Dem seats"? Would you consider a district that voted 51-47 for Obama a Dem seat or a Rep seat if I put one of the Republicans there? In any case a PA map with just 4 Democrats is a disaster in the making for the pubbies. Even in Ohio I had trouble keeping the Dems down to just 4 seats.

No, a Pubbie seat in general is one where in an even election, the Pubbie wins by say at least 3%.  Since Obama won the nation by 7%, if he wins by 4%, that is that 3% GOP lean. Sure a 6% GOP lean would be better, but in some places, that is just not possible, without conceding too much, or simply isn't there at all, like in the Philly suburbs, even if you knock out the most Dem areas of them.

Bear in mind, that since this exercise is mostly about protecting GOP incumbents now, rather than knocking out Dem ones, as long as the Pubbie incumbents stay around, and do a reasonably good job, they should be OK in districts with this amount of GOP lean from an even partisan baseline, even if Obama wins the nation again by 7% (incumbency should give them a 3-5% margin pad or so I would think).

But in the Detroit metro area we have an exception, where we are trying to knock out Dem incumbents Peters and Levin.

[Torie]

You get an "A" for this exercise if you hew to the rule of 4 - 4 Dem seats each for Pennsylvania, Ohio and Michigan.

I would really be interested in seeing a PA map with only 4 Democrats. And what is meant by "Dem seats"? Would you consider a district that voted 51-47 for Obama a Dem seat or a Rep seat if I put one of the Republicans there? In any case a PA map with just 4 Democrats is a disaster in the making for the pubbies. Even in Ohio I had trouble keeping the Dems down to just 4 seats.

Did you see what I did to the inner city Pittsburgh district?    Again, in west PA, the Dem districts have lost a lot of population, which allows for a big Dem pack, particularly since PA lost a CD. So the Dems in west PA will have but one seat - on paper. Yes, Holden and Altmire may hang on (and probably will), and the Dems win 6 seats, but those two will be representing GOP districts - and vote accordingly. Good for them. And in suburban Philly, the Dems will be competitive, if there is a rather significant shift back their way, defeating some GOP incumbents, but nothing can be done about that. The available territory is too marginal.

[Torie]

Seeing all this--how exactly did Peters survive this year in his current district?

P-O-N-T-I-A-C (80% for Kerry - 17,759 to 4,499 in the city, and about 53% for Kerry in neighboring Auburn Hills I think).  And he had West Bloomfield (about 59% for Peters - that must be where the Jewish lawyers live ), and Farmington Hills (57% for Peters).  All three are gone now, appended to the black district (except for about 15 precincts in Farmington Hills which were added to McCotter's green district). He also had to lose marginally GOP Waterford (47.5% for Peters). Instead, he now has marginally (56% for  Levin) Dem Madison Heights (not that big a town, but I needed to put it in his district, to shove all of West Bloomfield out of his district and into the black district to make its march to Pontiac both legal and via all Dem - and heavily Dem, pathways), and three townships in Macomb, two GOP (Shelby 60% for Bush, and Sterling Heights 52% for Bush) and one marginally Dem (Warren - 56% for Kerry, and maybe 53% for Levin or less).

But Pontiac is 90% of the story.

[Torie]

I am well aware that among the cohort of voters that I am talking about, 2010 was a GOP high tide mark. That is one reason why I split the marginally Dem areas of Macomb that are now in Levin's district between the Peters' district and the Miller district. And that was why I worked so hard to try to shore up McCotter's district, which is very vulnerable if he is not the incumbent. I largely failed in the latter endeavor. It just is not possible given the Michigan law constraints. And if you have to have Dem areas in your CD, better that it be ones that can swing your way, rather than those that think Pubbies are generally toxic, and will give you the permanent finger, no? 

Another trick is to see where the demographic growth will be. At least McCotter's district has a lot of real estate ripe for more middle class exurban Pubbies to move into over time. It seems clear that the population growth in his part of Oakland was pretty robust. That is why the Green district did not have to add much territory, even with the bounce up in the population requirement per CD juiced by Michigan losing a CD.

[Torie]

The green district is far too Dem, and you did not get rid of Levin. The Dems would love your map. Mine will have a more GOP green district, and get rid of both Levin and Peters. The Levin district that you designed might not fly because it is too erose. One needs to make the districts look more compact, by filling them out with places without many voters. Granted my latest little work in progress gets a bit erose with the Flint district, as I have the Flint district now taking in Pontiac (I "need" to do this to beef up the McCotter district and get the Peters district to the point where Peters will have to vote like a Pubbie to survive), but I am trying to cosmeticize it, but the more cosmetic it is, the most GOP votes I have to lose, so it is a balancing test. The trick is to design every CD but 4 in Michigan, to all being carried fairly comfortably by Bush 2004, and if not by McCain, he at least would have got quite close.

The first thing you need to do, is to strip the black districts of white votes in their south tails, shoving those voters into the Dingell district, so that one of the black districts needs close to 400,000 more in population, all made up with Oakland County Democrats. The more you can strip the black districts of white voters in the south, the more you can round up Dems in the north.

[Torie]

I never said I was gonna get rid of Levin. I said I was gonna turn his district into a vote sink.

And there is NO Dingell district on this map. Dingell is drawn out of Congress in this map.

And are there minorities in Oakland County that aren't in Levin or Conyers district?

You put Ann Arbor into a Pubbie district?  Oh dear. Do you think a Pubbie could win the gray district absent a wave? And yes, there are a lot of blacks in the Peters district, particularly in Pontiac, but beyond that, in the upper middle class more Jewish parts of Oakland, in particular West Bloomfield and Farmington. That is where the bourgeoisie blacks live now (those that cannot quite afford that, live in Southfield). Why on earth would they live anywhere else, if black? Unless you have an intellectual bent, and want to live in Ann Arbor, which is certainly where I would live, if I were "sentenced" to live in the Detroit metro area. Ann Arbor was such a joy to live in when I was in law school there. Gosh, how I love that town.

[Torie]

Yep, and there is not a darn thing that can be done about it. If the Dems win the nation by 7%, some GOP seats are going to go down - certainly if they have no incumbent, or a suck incumbent. And that is how it should be. If you play much with this map, if a GOP incumbent retires, the Dems are more likely than not to pick the seat up, in an even election. Michigan is not the South. There are not huge partisan variations, after one gets done with the black, Jewish, and Dutch areas. And the Dutch live a long way from the blacks and the Jews. Combine that with the legal constraints, and if you can do better than this map, send it along to the redistricters.

By the way, Rodgers won CD-8 in 2008 by 57%-40%, while Obama was carrying it by 7%. Some GOP incumbent congressmen are nebbishes (like a long string of them in CD-7, who keep getting defeated, and the one that just got elected is more in the nebbish category, carrying on that tradition), and some are mensches. Rodgers is an uber  mensch. And McCotter is a mensch, if not quite in the uber category. Obama carried his CD by 9%, while McCotter carried his CD-11 in 2008 by 9%.  Oh, and nobody is going to beat Candice Miller, in Macomb. She won her CD in 2008 by 66%-31%, while McCain was carrying it by 2%.  So while her margin in her new district in 2008 might have been more like 63-37 or so, she remains invulnerable. Plus, her new Dem portions of Macomb are trending GOP. I keep such matters in the back of my mind.

[Torie]

I have figured out in my head a Michigan map that I think might work, which cedes a CD where Peters and Levin fight it out, while strengthening some of the GOP seats, and in particular CD's 8, 11 and 12.   I will put that map up in due course. This is a fun game actually. 

[Torie]

Well in the current plan, Oakland has a four way split, and that certainly could have been avoided, but it wasn't. The law basically has a reasonable standard; there is no special award of negative points for having 3 way rather than 2 way splits of a county. The Washtenaw split is really just a population equalizer in any event. In the current plan, note that CD-05 does an adjacent split of Bay and Saginaw Counties, to take in both Bay City and Saginaw;  that would seem illegal on its face since the splits are both involving just one CD, CD-04, but it flew anyway.

I could squeeze CD-08 out of Washtenaw, without doing much damage really. Not that many people are involved. The effect however, would be to make CD-11 a bit more Dem, because that CD would have to take some territory from CD-12. Or all the CD's in the area would have to look more erose (with CD-08 and CD-11 both a tad more Dem, as they would have to reach down and take in Madison Heights, Berkley and Royal Oak in southeast Oakland.

I have another plan that puts Pontiac and West Broomfield in CD -08. That allows CD-11 to yes take in marginally Dem Farmington, but that it punches through Southfield Township (Beverly Hills, not the city of Southfield), and then take in GOP Broomfield, Birmingham, and Troy.  That way at the south end of his CD, he can lose 58% Dem Westland. The advantage of this plan is that Rogers can keep Livingston, and McCotter keeps Livonia, their respective home fields. And CD-09 is just shredded away, so Peters has nowhere to run at all. He would face Rogers in CD-08, with only Rochester where he lives in it, along with the GOP northeast corner of Oakland, and Pontiac, Auburn Hills, Waterfield and West Bloomfield, but the rest of the district is all Rogers territory, and heavily GOP (northwest Oakland and Livingston).  So basically CD-08, takes in heavily Dem Pontiac, marginally Dem Auburn Hills, 60% Dem or so West Broomfield, with the balance of the CD all comfortable to heavily GOP territory.

[Torie]

I am combining my three plans into one post.

To give some definition to my terms, I consider a "safe" GOP seat, one that Bush 2004 got at least 54.5% of the two party vote, with 55% being even better, and that was my goal, not quite reached in a couple of instances (I am between 54.5% and 55%).  A 52.5-54.5% Bush 2004 seat is lean GOP, and anything less than that is really in the tilt to tossup category.  Every percentage point counts - and counts a lot - in our divided and quite closely balanced partisan environment, with relatively few swing voters. A 54.5% CD by the way is a +3% GOP PVI from Bush 2004 numbers (Bush 2004 got 51.4% of the two party vote). Pubbies have been pretty successful in holding +3% or better GOP PVI districts in the past (well outside the South, until now, where some Dem fossils held on). Sure, some are lost from time to time, but not many.

The first plan is the one that tries to cut down the Dems to holding just 4 seats.  It does this by getting rid of CD-12. The Dem parts of CD-12 in Oakland County, are given to one of the black seats, CD-14.  (All 3 plans do that in fact.) CD-09 takes in the marginally Dem CD-12 areas in Macomb of Warren Township, and its third of Sterling Heights, while CD-10 takes the marginally Dem areas in Macomb of Eastpointe, St. Clair Shores, Mt Clements, and Clinton Township, all marginally Dem, while losing much of its thumb territory. So CD-10 becomes a more marginally GOP seat, renumbered CD-12. CD-09 in Oakland becomes comfortably GOP having lost its Dem areas in Oakland, in exchange for less Dem areas in Macomb. But having CD-05 go south to take in Pontiac, creates a barrier that makes it impossible for CD-11 to get at the heavily populated GOP areas in eastern Oakland (Rochester, Troy, Bloomfield), so it struggles to find GOP territory, without a whole lot of success; so CD-11 becomes just a tad more GOP and somewhat marginal.

Meanwhile CD-08 becomes a marginal GOP seat, because it still has to take in Lansing, and while it gains some GOP territory in the East, it loses its heavily GOP territory in northern Oakland (now taken up to some extent by CD-05 so that it can link up to Pontiac.

So this plan creates 4 marginal GOP seats, CD's 01, 08, 11 and 12. And that is why this plan will not be adopted.  Rogers in CD-08, McCotter in CD-11, and Miller in now CD-10, to be renumbered CD-12, will not be very happy. Plus, one cannot beef up CD-01 much, without it looking embarrassingly erose. And given the play of geography in the next two plans, we can put MI-01 in safe GOP territory, without being so embarrassed.







So that brings us to the second plan. In this plan, CD-12 again loses its Dem areas in Oakland to CD-14, but this time is all in Macomb County, and also takes in the Gross Pointes in Wayne County. This is possible in this plan precisely because CD-12 is now otherwise all in Macomb county, with nothing in Oakland. Having CD-12 go into three counties, is probably not legal. So with the Gross Pointes in CD-12, we can make that a toss up district (rather than marginal GOP in the first plan), but in exchange, Miller (CD-10), Rogers (now all in Oakland in CD-09, with his old CD-08 now the number for Dingell’s old CD-15), and McCotter (CD-11) now all have safe districts. CD-01 becomes safe GOP as well. This plan is elegant, because it creates nice compact looking districts, and minimizes county splits, with CD-09 now all in Oakland County, and Oakland now having only 3 CD’s in it rather than 4.

The problem with this plan however, is that Livingston County is now appended to McCotter’s CD-11, so Rogers will have to move to Oakland County (where about a third of his district currently is).. Rogers will not want to move if it can be avoided.







So I suspect a third plan will be adopted: the one below. In this plan, Rogers keeps his Livingston base, with the rest of his district now in Oakland (except for a sliver of Washtenaw as a population equalizer taking up marginal political territory). The key to this plan, is to give Rogers the Dem areas of Pontiac and West Broomfield in Oakland, which he can handle, since the balance of what he has in Oakland is mostly heavily GOP, along with Livingston (CD-08 no longer has to cope with Dem Lansing and Inghram County, so he as plenty of GOP partisan pad to contain and neutralize Pontiac and environs).  

The old CD-09 is totally chopped up, and Peters has nowhere to run. (Yes, in that sense, it is convenient that Peters won in CD-09 this year, because if the Pubbie had won, then there would have been a real pushing and shoving match, as to which incumbent Pubbie gets what, and it might have been a toss up whether my first plan (which creates 3 marginal GOP seats), or this plan, were adopted.)

The last map at the bottom, shows what was the new now CD-08 looks like, with the green part in Oakland from the old CD-09 (except for GOP White Lake Township, which is from CD-11), the gray in the old CD-08 (CD-08 lost the pink area to the east, largely in Inghram County), and the green in Washtenaw (marginal partisan territory), is from the old CD-07. By CD-08 taking in Pontiac and West Broomfield, that  creates a geographic pathway for  McCotter’s CD-11 to then capture heavily populated GOP areas in Oakland of Troy and Broomfield via cutting through marginally Dem Farmington.  If  Pontiac is put in CD-05 or CD-14, a barrier is created that makes it not viable for CD-09 to take in West Broomfield, and that leaves CD-11 to cope with both Farmington and West Broomfield and drop some Dem precincts in Wayne, while trying to get at Broomfield and Troy;  that is just too much population in which to switch for CD-11. It does not work, because the 3 Dem districts in metro Detroit, the two black districts, and the Dingell district, end up with too much population.

So, in summary, I think this plan will be adopted more or less, because it makes all the GOP incumbents happy, and gives the GOP an even shot of winning what is now the 5th Dem seat in Macomb County (CD-12). We shall see what happens. I am going to send all of this data to the Michigan “redistricters.”

[Torie]

If they actually do put part of the 5th in Wayne County, that's gonna make for some interesting happenings during the county meetings back home... especially since the county has never really interacted with the 5th.

The 5th never hits Wayne in any of the 3 plans, just Oakland in one of them, to take in Pontiac. By the way, who is the Pubbie point man in the legislature for redistricting?  Would you happen to know, or could you find out?  I am not getting much cooperation so far when I call.

[Torie]

In the never ending saga of Torie meets Michigan, I have yet another new "improved" map. Muon2 in his gentle but persistent professorial way, was kicking my butt so hard about my triple CD split of Washtenaw County from a legal standpoint, that my cheeks were metaphorically black and blue. I resisted him because it seemed to me that doing but a double split of Washtenaw, meant yet another county split elsewhere, an exercise that I went through time and again. But I was fixated on either CD-08 or CD-07 taking all of Washtenaw left over from CD-15 (the Dingell district, now CD-09, since the old Oakland County CD-09 is now gone).

But alas I failed to consider Dingell himself taking over the territory of one of the other CD's in Washtenaw (yes, Torie was a total dumb on that one), and as soon as I considered that, I realized, that yes indeed, Dingell could take over the northern strip of Washtenaw from CD-08, without another county split. So it had to be done. The consequence is that CD-08 needed to grab some of the precincts at the northern edges of CD-11 (to replace the lost Washtenaw precincts), comfortably to heavily GOP (I cherry picked the precincts in Troy City, and thus the ugly CD-08 spike down along the Macomb County border, because the northern row of Troy City precincts were like 60-40 Bush, and I just hated to give them up, so thus the spike which is about 55-45 Bush). This in turn forced CD-11 to then pick up some marginal Dem territory to its south in Oakland (Berkeley and most  Royal Oak City (all but 11 of most of the most heavily Dem precincts which conveniently are in the southern edge of Royal Oak).  (The two black CD's then had to pick up some territory from Dingell in Wayne County, which is not relevant for this exercise, since those CD's are designed to all be massively Dem.)

This merry-go-round involved about 43,000 people, and the results were less harmful to CD-11 than I feared. It dropped from 55.04% Bush 2004 to 54.32% Bush 2004. The number of folks was small enough, and the new Dem territory marginal enough, to limit the damage.

I suspect the CD-11 Bush 2004 number will get back up to about 55%, when the real census numbers come in, and we find the Pubbie areas of Oakland County have more people relative to the Dem areas, thereby affording a relatively more populated Pubbie zone in Oakland for CD-08 and CD-11 to divvy up as compared to the Dem areas in order for the CD's to meet the equal population requirement. The only fly in the ointment is if Pontiac suffered a rather catastrophic population loss relatively speaking, which while massively Dem, represents an island in the otherwise heavily GOP CD-08 sea (except for 60-40 or close to it middle to upper middle class Dem West Bloomfield, which CD-08 also seamlessly sucks up), that potentially could cause CD-08 to get greedy again for CD-11 Oakland County precincts. But I strongly suspect the net effect will be fairly substantially positive for CD-11, since most of the balance of what is in CD-08 in Oakland is heavily GOP and probably had pretty good population growth relative to the Dem south to southeast corner of Oakland.

Are we happy now Muon2?    Thanks by the way; I needed your help!

[Torie]

Only Rogers could hold CD-08 in your map Muon2, and even he might have trouble in a year like 2008. If he retired, a Dem would take that CD without too much of a sweat all things being equal. The university precincts are just deadly to the GOP. Some other Pubbie incumbents would also be quite vulnerable. They would not like your map - at all.

But then as you say, it is a relatively non-partisan map.

[Torie]

Well, Inks the map of the Detroit metro area certainly looks legal, but Kerry may have carried CD-11 (the green district) because you have both Farmington and West Bloomfield in it in Oakland, plus it goes too far south, and takes in all of Westland, which is at once both a big place and a  "bad place" (about 57% Kerry), and Wayne, which is an even worse place (although much smaller), at 59% Kerry.  Redford also sucks at 56% Kerry or something (and it is a fairly large suburb as well). Overall, your MI-11 looks like it might be something like a +2% Dem PVI CD. McCotter will freak. Your cyan CD (MI-09), is a Dem district basically, which Peters will easily carry (putting 85% Dem and large Southfield in it, and 85% Dem Pontiac, plus some other towns almost as Dem like Huntington Woods and Farmdale, along with some marginal Dem towns, probably makes it something like a 58% Kerry CD).

In my map, McCotter in CD-11 was far safer (no West Bloomfield (close to 60% Kerry with a pretty big population), no Wayne, no Redford, and only a partial of Westland). I eliminated CD-09 rather than CD-12, and my new MI-12 CD is marginal (and all in Macomb County, where Levin was very weak in 2010, only carrying that portion of his CD (the most Dem part of Macomb, by 53%), with a PVI at about even. One of the keys there is to unlock and pump into my MI-12 the Pubbie Gross Pointes, while not picking up 57% Kerry Harbor Woods. That is what enables it to be made a dead even CD - and nothing else - of remotely equal importance. The rest was playing games like trying legally to get small but something like 57% Kerry Mt. Clemens out of MI-12 legally, which I finally figured out how to do. The Mt. Clemens cutout  was worth about 15 basis points or something for MI-12 on my map in the Pubbie direction. In this game, you fight for every basis point.

Oh, and Camp in MI-04 is going to hate his CD. It is probably only about 52% Bush, if that. Ouch! Pubbie CD's in this neck of the woods need to be 54.5% Bush 2004 (+3% GOP PVI) to be viewed as reasonably safe. Anything less, and the odds of them falling in a wave, or falling if open, begin to go up exponentially. You can't cut him off from heavily GOP Grand Traverse, and a couple of other surrounding counties up there, and saddle him with Bay City (both of which I did as well), without giving him some compensating solid GOP territory, which ends up having to be Kent County adjacent and probably Dutch influence Ionia and Barry Counties. They just have to be in his CD, if you are going to cut him off from the NW, in order to make MI-01 more GOP. I also see that you have Mt. Pleasant in Camp's CD as well, which needs to go. I put that place in the Kent County CD, in order to neutralize it.

Camp is currently at about 55%, and I shaved him down to 54.6% or something (the numbers are in a post of mine above), and I would like if I could to get it higher, but I can't given the legal rules, unless I push MI-01 into the marginal zone. Hopefully Camp won't bitch too much. All of the other Pubbies will be deliriously happy with their CD's, except perhaps for Miller in CD-10, who was shaved down a bit, but she is still above 55%, and I doubt will complain. The trends in her zone are good.

Oh wait. The CD that you label CD-12 which is some of Detroit, some of Dearborn maybe, the Gross Pointes and Harbor Woods, and the southern tier of Macomb, may  not by the look of it to me be 50% black. Is it?  If it isn't, then yes, the map is illegal under the VRA. But that can be fixed by shifting around precincts between the two CD's that take in Detroit.